Cat's Cradle

That was when he knew this wasn’t real. In real life, Cat Beaudine had never actually pointed that gun at him; she’d only threatened that she might.

In the dream–or the hallucination or whatever it was–he could talk now. He asked Cat Beaudine, “Why do you care what your sister does? Why do you care if she gets home at night?”

Cat answered, “Somebody’s got to care. Somebody’s got to keep this family together. It’s not a job I volunteered for, Dillon McKenna, but it’s the job I got stuck with. It’s a school night. You said you’d get her in by nine.”

He was still staring down those double barrels. He watched in disbelief as Cat disengaged the safety and wrapped two fingers around the twin triggers.

He threw his hands up, shouting, “Hey, you can’t shoot me just for keeping Adora out an hour late!”

But Cat pulled the trigger anyway.

And pain erupted through him, white and hot. Teeth of fire dug his flesh away.

And somebody said, “Where’s the anesthesiologist? We’re only waiting for the anesthesiologist....”

* * *

Much later, he swam toward consciousness. The pain was different now. It was still there, still eating him alive, but they must have given him something powerful to ease it. Now the pain seemed to be consuming him from a distance. He knew it was bad, the worst he’d ever experienced. But it was kept at bay somewhere, waiting for the medication to wear off just a little so it could leap on him and devour him whole.

He turned his head and cautiously opened his eyes. An IV drip stood by the metal side rail of the bed. It was hooked up to his arm. There was some machine close by that made little bleeping sounds, like bubbles singing underwater. The air smelled of disinfectant overlaid with the scent of flowers. The flowers were everywhere, intended, no doubt, to cheer up the invalid: him.

And there were voices, from across the room.

They whispered to each other.

“My God, L.W. I just can’t.”

“You can. You will. McKenna needs you now.”

“They say he may never walk again. He may be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It’s too awful, too ugly, I just can’t–”

“For God’s sake, Natalie. Get a grip on yourself. He’s waking up.”

He looked toward the sound of the voices. Two familiar faces swam into focus. Natalie, the woman he had meant to marry. And L.W., the man who’d made his name a household word. Both of them were looking right back at him, their mouths stretched into big, brave smiles.

He felt sorry for them, in a removed sort of way. He wasn’t going to be much use to either of them now. Just as neither of them was going to be much use to him. Because he didn’t kid himself. He’d been broken up enough in his time to have a vague idea of what he was in for. He may have survived his final jump after all. But hell was still waiting for him–a living hell.

A sharp longing pierced him, worse, in a way, than the pain that waited to eat him alive.

It was a longing for home. And for the kind of woman who could take the tough times; a woman strong enough to stand by his side while he endured the months of torment and superhuman effort that were coming up next.

One

Eighteen months later....

Cat Beaudine stood in the doorway of her sister’s bedroom. She took in the room at a glance. On the dresser, the small color television soundlessly played the 11:00 p.m. news. There were balled-up tissues everywhere, looking like sad, crumpled paper flowers, used and discarded in drifts and trails across the pink satin sheets of the bed. In the center of the crumpled satin, surrounded by all those used tissues, Cat’s sister, Adora, lay sprawled facedown sobbing forlornly.

Adora’s most recent boyfriend, Farley Underwood, had left her. And, as always, Adora had called Cat.

Slowly, as if it pained her to lift her head, Adora looked up. She let out a strangled cry. Then she reared back on her knees, her tousled brown hair curling enchantingly around her pretty, flushed face, her cream silk negligee slipping off one shoulder. “Oh, Cat!”

Cautiously Cat approached the bed.

Adora dabbed at her streaming eyes with a wadded-up tissue. “Oh, Cat. Thanks for coming. For always being there over all the years. For being the best big sister in the world. I don’t know what I’d do...without you.” With a desolate moan, Adora held out her arms.

Cat sank to the edge of the bed and allowed herself to be enveloped in her sister’s misery and the heady scent of Adora’s perfume.

Adora moaned against Cat’s heavy winter jacket. “I’m sorry. To be such a pain. But I had to have someone. Some family. You understand, don’t you?”

Cat made a small, sympathetic sound; all that was required at the moment.

Adora sobbed on. “Why me? What is it about me? Why does every man I ever meet end up dumping me? All I ever wanted was what my two baby sisters have. A good man. A family. Someone to take care of me and someone I can take care of in return. Is it too much to ask? Is it unreasonable to hope for?” Adora gave another quivering whimper. “Is it?”

“No, of course it’s not.”

“Of course it’s not!” Adora picked up Cat’s words and gave them back in a wail. “But it never happens. I’m thirty-four years old. How long do I have to wait? And I’m not like you, Cat, perfectly happy wandering around the woods in work boots and baggy jeans with no man in sight, wanting to live out in the middle of nowhere alone in some ancient, run-down shack. I’m just a woman. An ordinary woman. I want a home, with nice window treatments and a baby on the way.”

Adora surrendered to a fresh fit of weeping. Cat held her and made the required soothing sounds. Eventually Adora calmed a little. Then Cat put her arm around Adora and said the things she always said whenever Adora lost a boyfriend.

“You’re too good for him.... You’re better off without him.... Someone terrific will come along soon....”

Adora listened, tucked up in the hollow of Cat’s shoulder, and made tiny, woebegone noises of agreement.

“Oh, Cat. Do you really think the right man could still come along?”

“Of course I do. I promise you. It’s only a matter of...”

But Cat didn’t get any farther, because Adora wasn’t listening. Adora was gaping at the television instead.

“Omigod!” Cat’s sister exclaimed in an ecstatic whisper.

Cat looked at the television. One of those late-night talk shows had come on. A host Cat didn’t recognize was interviewing some dark-haired hunk in designer jeans and fancy alligator boots. “What? What is it?”

Adora clutched a wadded-up tissue to her breast and pointed at the television. “It’s Dillon. Dillon McKenna. Turn it up. Cat, turn it up!” When Cat didn’t move, Adora frantically fumbled around under the mountain of pillows at the head of the bed and came up with a remote control, which she pointed at the television. The sound came on.

“So, Dillon.” The host held up a book with a photograph of a gruesomely wrecked motorcycle on the dust jacket. Beneath the crumpled motorcycle, the word Daredevil was printed in letters that seemed to be on fire. “Tell us about this book you’ve written.”

Cat made a low noise of disbelief. “Oh, please. Dillon McKenna never wrote a book. I don’t buy that for a minute.”

“Shh!” Adora hissed and craned forward toward the small screen. “Oh, God. He looks wonderful.... You can’t even see how bad he was hurt in that awful crack-up in Las Vegas. He looks just like before.”

On the screen, the dark-haired hunk began to talk. “Well now, if you look down in the corner there, you’ll see that I didn’t write it.” He nudged the slender, serious-looking man sitting next to him. “Oliver here did that. He’s the writer.”

Oliver picked up his cue. “But the story is authentic. Just as Dillon told it to me. From his early days in rodeo, through his years as a movie stuntman, right up to the challenges he set himself. Nothing’s missing. There’s every jump he ever accomplished, including that baker’s dozen Peterbilt semitrucks at the Anaheim Speedway. And, of course, the story finds its climax in Dillon’s spectacular, near-death experience in Las Vegas just a year and a half ago.”

Cat watched her sister watching Dillon McKenna. Adora’s face wore a dreamy, faraway look. Farley Underwood might never have existed.

“Dillon really did turn out to be a fantastic-looking man, didn’t he, Cat?” Adora asked.